Bully Ray & Mark Henry Discuss Adam Copeland's AEW Dynamite Promo

The April 3 "AEW Dynamite" opened with TNT Champion Adam Copeland coming to the ring for an in-ring promo, with many fans not knowing exactly what he was going to say. Following on from the announcement that Copeland, Mark Briscoe, and Eddie Kingston would be facing the House of Black at Dynasty, many assumed it would be about that. However, Copeland chose to cut a heartfelt promo that addressed a lot of the 'negative BS' that had surrounded the company in the days leading up to the show.

From the company releasing 10 of its performers, to everything CM Punk had to say to Ariel Helwani, AEW didn't start April 2024 on a great note. On Busted Open Radio, Bully Ray praised Copeland's promo, stating that it felt like Copeland's idea rather than Tony Khan asking him to say nice things about AEW. "This is Adam Copeland speaking from the heart," Bully said. "This is Adam Copeland going up to Tony and saying 'I want to open the show, I've got something I want to say. I need to put this company on a pedestal, I need to let the fans know about how I feel, I need to let the boys know how I feel, I need to express a great message to the locker room.'"

Both Bully and Mark Henry agreed that the promo was Copeland wanting to assert himself as a leader-type figure for the AEW locker room to show that everything is going to be okay going forward. Henry in particular noted this is nothing new in wrestling, as people like John Cena did similar speeches in WWE, Cody Rhodes did it when he was part of AEW, and Chris Jericho also has a knack for rallying people together.

Please credit "Busted Open Radio" when using quotes from this article, and give a H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.